Page 29 of The Friends and Rivals Collection

A COMPETITIVE MONSTER

Axel

I’m close, so damn close, to putting all the pieces of the puzzle together, but I can’t snag a private moment to tell Hazel as we traipse all over the city with the group.

We eventually stop in the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi neighborhood for dinner, eating charred artichokes and drinking wine at a sidewalk café.

Hazel lifts a glass of her rioja red. “Because it’s Wineday.”

“May every day be Wineday,” I second, then take a hearty swallow of a wine that tastes like plums. I sit across from her, but there’s no chance to talk at the table. We aren’t boarding the train until late in the evening, but maybe I’ll grab some quiet time with her on the way back to the station.

At the end of the meal, Amy clinks her fork against her wine glass, then says, “We have a surprise for Axel and Hazel.”

I tense.

A surprise is usually something that blindsides you. Like your dad saying Surprise, we're going to Atlantic City for the weekend so you can work on some short cons .

Or, when you discover your love is cheating thanks to a social media post, like what happened to Hazel with Max. She mentioned it this morning, and I wince over that too, and my role in it. That’s another reason I need time alone with her. I have to tell her.

“Since our train ride to Paris is a short one,” Amy continues at the head of the table, “I put together a scavenger hunt for you two.”

Well, shit.

Welcome to my Hunger Games.

I don’t actually mind scavenger hunts. Carter dragged me on one when he visited me in Vienna in the off-season.

My brother loves escape rooms, riddles, treasure hunts, and all that stuff.

“Don’t care if I win,” he’d said. “Okay, that’s a lie.

I love winning, but this is no-pressure winning, unlike, say, my Sundays. ”

Made perfect sense. On Sundays, he plays pro football.

Scavenger hunts are fun for him because they aren’t part of his job.

But they feel like part of mine. Like I’m supposed to be good at them. That’s why they aren’t my thing . At least, not like this. With a group .

As we leave the restaurant, heading toward a nearby square, I try to develop a game plan for clues I don’t even yet know. That’s how badly I feel pressured to win.

Looking concerned, Hazel tugs on my shirt, pulls me aside on the street.

“You okay?”

Her concern feels good. “Was it obvious?”

She points at my face. “The sour look gave you away.”

I go blank, stony. “Better?”

“That’s good. But seriously, what’s wrong? You hate scavenger hunts?”

I sigh, dragging a hand through my hair. “Yeah.”

“Any reason?”

I hate that she’s so caring, but I love that she’s so caring. “There’s no way to say this without sounding like a dick,” I mutter.

“It’s okay,” she says, gently, a little playfully. “I know you're a jerk, and I don’t mind.”

I love that too. That she knows me, all of me. That she’s not afraid to call me a jerk, because it’s different to call your friend a jerk than it is your enemy. I can hear the softness in her tone. I welcome it.

And maybe today is one for confessions. I told Steven about the reviews. I can say this to Hazel. “I hate doing them in front of people. Because everyone expects me to be the best,” I admit with a sneer. The sneer is for me—I do sound like a big dick.

She nods. “Because you’re a former lawyer, because you’re a thriller writer, because you plot for a living.” Of course she gets it.

“Yep.”

She pats my arm with affection. “Want me to let you in on a little secret?”

All your secrets, especially if they’re about me . “Yes,” I say.

“It’s okay if you don’t win. Other people like to win too. Just play for fun. You’ll be on my team.”

“Where’s my competitive monster?” I ask, pretending to hunt around for her.

An impish shrug is Hazel’s only answer. “Sometimes my competitive monster likes to have a glass of rioja and take the night off. Yours can join her at the café drinking wine while you and I scavenge.” She drapes an arm around my shoulder, squeezes. “Hey! That reminds me of sweet raccoon wine.”

As we head along the street toward the nearby square, I arch a dubious brow. “That sounds like a clue in a scavenger hunt, or something the chief forager was peddling.”

“Or,” she says, holding up a finger, “a new type of wine.”

She goes on to tell me about the research she did with the New York sommelier about grape harvests. “I was dying to disprove the restaurateur,” she says.

“Ah, that’s the malcontent I know,” I say. “I’m so proud of you for wanting to prove someone wrong.”

With a laugh she asks, “And you want to hear the wildest thing of all?”

We’re ten feet from the group, so there’s just enough time. “Always.”

She stops at a street cart, where a vendor peddles fresh fruit.

She’s using the cart for protection, so we can talk freely before we’re with the crowd again.

Her face is soft, her eyes tender as she says, “When I found out, I wanted to tell you about the raccoons and the bird and the grape harvest. Isn’t that weird? ”

My heart squeezes. “That’s the weirdest.”

“Later that day, I found out about the trip. But even before the trip news, I still thought of you,” she says, then knits her brow, like she’s sorting her impulse to talk to me then on the timeline of us.

Before the airplane apology.

Before the fountain confessions.

Even before we started stitching our friendship back together, she still wanted to talk to me.

I was a jerk then.

Hell, that barely covers it. I was a world-class prick, yet she wanted to share the idea of sweet raccoon wine with me.

That confession doesn’t slow the train of my new, unexpected thoughts. It speeds it up. Soon, I’ll need to talk to her about them, or explode.

But first, it’s time for a scavenger hunt.

Hazel was right. Other people do enjoy winning, and focusing on that—and them—takes all the pressure off me.

I’m having—gasp—fun. Steven kills it at solving clues leading to locations from my books. No surprise there. He’s in first place with his teammate, Alecia, collecting photos at all the locations in the hunt.

While we gather outside a tapas bar with flickering white lights, Amy sends the final clue to our phones.

Beside me, Hazel reads out loud from her device. “ Here, the metal glistened ,” she says, then cuts herself off, shouting, “The Hotel Reyes!”

I laugh as she immediately claps her hand over her mouth, eyes popping like she can’t believe she just spoiled the name of the hotel that hosts a glittery gala in A Beautiful Midnight .

“Sorry!” she says to the group, but the Book Besties are already laughing, and Redheaded College Girl is too. “It’s just my favorite scene in that book.”

Amy laughs as well. “No biggie. And we need to catch the train anyway, so maybe it all works out.”

A smooth baritone cuts through the crowd. “I can hold the train if you need a little more time for the photo.”

That’s Bettencourt, who’s materialized by Amy’s side. Perhaps that’s another thing billionaires do. Materialize.

“That would be great,” she says. “We can get a shot of the tour group outside the hotel.” The Book Besties lose their minds at the suggestion.

As we walk, Hazel explains more to the group again. “I just love when Francesca dances the tango at the gala with the knife in her garter,” she says, unapologetic in her apology.

I love that she loves that scene.

When we make it back to the train—held by Bettencourt, as promised—I put my language lessons to use, ordering drinks in the bar car for the crew.

“Ooh, la la,” Hazel says when I return with her favorite—a chardonnay.

We toast, and soon the conversation returns to the Book Besties and their daily lives.

Jackie and her husband are raising two teens, including a high school senior with autism, Alecia’s wife just returned to work after beating breast cancer, and Maria’s going back to college at age forty-five to finish her degree.

We drink and talk about life and all its complications until Jackie says, with a wink in her dark eyes, “So, Noah and Lacey?”

Alecia smacks the table playfully, admonishing her friend. “You are like a dog with a bone, girl. Let it go. I want my ribeye steak reward,” she says, determined to win the bet with her friends over the love interest in our book.

But I want something too.

I want to work with Hazel again. Badly.

I turn to my friend—or friend again I should say. Even though I’ve had a few glasses, I won’t give wine that much power. This is the thought I’ve been marinating all day.

The guy I’ve been thinking of all day.

The guy we left on the operating table more than a year ago. Lacey’s guy.

When our gazes lock, Hazel’s wearing her familiar, public grin.

The one that says she’ll protect me from the will you finish your book question. Like she protected me when I walked away. When I left her holding the bag on the contract. That was such a shitty thing to do. And I hope—I truly hope—she’ll take me back.

I’m glad we learned that secret code long ago so I can use it now. I give a shrug of my right shoulder then a lopsided grin. A gesture that’s always meant I’m all in if you are.

I hold my breath, desperate for her yes, but it comes in no time. Hazel shrieks. “You mean it?”

“I do.”

All day, all the good memories have knocked on the front of my mind. I’ve second guessed myself. I’ve wondered. I’ve worried. But I can’t deny this ache in my creative heart—I’ve missed working with her so much.

“Let’s do it,” she says, bursting with excitement.

I expect Alecia to whoop the loudest since she’ll get her steak, but they’re all wonderfully deafening. Her friends holler and cheer with her, and the other readers join in too, even Steven, and Uma the Redheaded College Girl, along with her crew.

“Can we put this on our social?” Jackie asks.

It seems fitting that the Book Besties should break the news after their role in bringing us back together. “Works for me if it’s good for Hazel,” I say.

My train roommate can’t seem to contain her excitement. “It’s very good for me. You’re like fairy godmothers.”

Jackie squeals. “Matchmakers, hon. We’re matchmakers,” Jackie says, then grabs her phone, presumably to make the news official.

Over at her table, Amy’s cheering while Bettencourt watches her intently, a smile tilting his mouth.

“It’s a train trip reunion,” she says, then holds up a glass of champagne. Bettencourt clinks his glass with hers, then clears his throat. “To the magic of trains bringing people together.”

It’s heady, this midnight celebration as we cross the border into France. Heady and dizzy and scary. Maybe I’ve jumped too soon. Or maybe I didn’t jump soon enough.

Either way, there’s no turning back, and I’m good with that.

I’m only nervous about one thing—how Hazel will react to what I have to tell her. The role I played in the end of her and Max.